Miniaturization, particularly in the electronic industry, created a need to pack in a large number of signal-carrying wire into small spaces. In order to avoid having a large number of individual wires coming into a device such as a printed circuit board, flat multi-conductor ribbon cable was developed. Further, in order to prevent the unintentional transfer of electrical signals; i.e., cross-talk, between cables and between individual conductors in a single cable, shielding was incorporated. Such shielding may take the form of a wrap of conducting material around the entire multi-conductor cable; see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,634,782. Or each individual conductor may be encased in a sheath of conducting material such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,663,739. Although not insurmountable, many problems did develop in terminating the shielded multi-conductor flat cable, particularly in terminating the shielding material itself. These problems led one worker in the field to invent a multi-conductor cable wherein each center conductor is individually shielded and each shield is provided with a drain wire which is in parallel and in contact with the shielding. This invention is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,775,552, the contents thereof being incorporated herein by reference. The individual drain wires provided a first step toward simplified terminating of multi-conductor cable of a coaxial nature; i.e., coaxial ribbon cable. What remained to be done was to invent a connector which would accomplish the simplified termination.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a connector which consists of an insulated housing having cavities therein, each cavity adapted to receive a contact member of the type where one end contains an opposing cantilever spring contact section and the opposite end contains a dual in-line, cantilever, torsion bar wire terminating section.